For this week’s entry, we have a rundown of recent developments in the world of social media evidence from some reputable sources.
KL Gates Social Media Analysis. To start off, our previous entry discussed the case of Richards v Hertz Corp., underscoring that any law firm defending or prosecuting personal injury claims, as well as their hired eDiscovery consultants, should be investigating social media sites for source evidence as a matter of course. The same is true for employment law matters and top 10 law firm K&L Gates (which has the best eDiscovery blog of any law firm in my opinion – eDiscoverylaw.com) has a great write-up of E.E.O.C. v. Original Honeybaked Ham Co. of Georgia, Inc, where social media evidence is playing a key role in that case, prompting the court to issue a broad discovery order for social media. Again, nothing really new here – just further reinforcement of the standardization of social media evidence.
Law Review and Social Media Evidence. This year, several reputable law reviews and other legal treatises have published important and very useful research notes on social media evidence. These resources are subscription only for those with access to Westlaw, but the following are a select list with cites to the articles that I found most useful:
- UNDERSTANDING AND AUTHENTICATING EVIDENCE FROM SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES, 7 Wash. J. L. Tech. & Arts 209, 224+
- TIPS FOR AUTHENTICATING SOCIAL MEDIA EVIDENCE, 100 Ill. B.J. 482, 485
- SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE RULES ON AUTHENTICATION, 43 U. Tol. L. Rev. 367, 405+
- WHAT HAPPENS ON MYSPACE STAYS ON MYSPACE: AUTHENTICATION AND GRIFFIN V. STATE, 42 U. Balt. L.F. 164, 186
- INTERNET, EMAIL AND SOCIAL MEDIA EVIDENCE, ST051 American Bar Association 51+
Netflix CEO in Hot Water with SEC over Facebook Post. Netlix CEO Reed Hastings congratulated his team for a job well done in early July on his public Facebook page, and now the SEC is investigating whether he violated investor fair disclosure rules. His message was only 43 words, boasting of increased subscribership and usage of online videos, which could be construed as material non-public information related to financial reporting. This incident obviously highlights the importance of social media monitoring consisting of best practices as part of a corporate social media compliance program.
Search Compliance Interview with Barry Murphy: Finally, this article: Q&A: Social media data collection increasingly vital to e-discovery is a good read. eDiscoveryJournal’s Barry Murphy is arguably the most knowledgeable independent industry analyst on social media evidence issues.